With the advent of color displays on cell phones, and operating systems for developing software applications, digital images are being used on cell phones in a variety of applications. Aside from the aesthetics of images, from the standpoint of information digital images convey a lot of information, much more than can be conveyed with text on the small cell phone displays. A picture's worth a thousand words. Consider, for example, a cell phone user who wishes to find directions to get from one location to another. An image of a map conveys much more information than a textual description.
Many cell phones today interact with a user with menu-driven text selections. Such an interface is cumbersome, and often involves many stages of user selection, each stage involving pressing a key or tapping a light pen. Use of images has the advantage of simplifying and accelerating the interface.
There is thus a need for an interactive imaging applications that enable a cell phone user to find the information he desires in a simple and rapid way, with an intuitive and aesthetic user interface.